


(There's A First Time) For Everything

by impossiblesongs



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 08:13:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9063727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossiblesongs/pseuds/impossiblesongs
Summary: In truth, he hadn’t expected River’s home to be, well, a home. Nor had he expected to get a Christmas card and an invite. – The Doctor’s first Christmas spent at the house on Luna University.





	

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer. 
> 
> **AN:** This is mostly just a Christmas piece to try to get myself back into writing and I have no idea how it will go over. Timeline-wise, I suppose I'd place Eleven right after the episode "Day Of The Moon".
> 
> I also wanted a better "First Time" than [[THIS]](http://timelocked.tumblr.com/post/5379270918) :(((( 
> 
> so here goes nothing x

After a phenomenal snog and an awkward parting, the Doctor had been sure River Song wanted nothing more to do with him however a Christmas card in addition to an address he’d never been privy to before said otherwise.

 

The house on Luna shines bright and unoccupied to the view of an outsider. From the window there peaks out a warm yellow hue but no figures can be seen from inside. He can hear Christmas music from Earth playing vaguely as the faint tune carries in the air, much like fabricated snow the planet has tried to recreate but just can’t muster enough might to gather itself in more than a dust of imitated flurries here and there.

 

The Doctor harrumphs at the chill of the air despite the lack of real snow and pulls his tweed tighter against his body.

 

In truth, he hadn’t expected River’s home to be, well, a _home_. Nor had he expected to get a Christmas card and an invite. The ghosts of his past usually stuck to a simple course road and the Doctor is ashamed to admit he’d expected River Song’s existence to be entirely different than it was. He’d expected her to reside in the space she occupied only when she occupied it. She’d surpassed all expectation from her first presence and onward, leaving him with little choice but to catch up. ( _He shouldn’t like that, quite does a bit.)_

 

He sniffs. Gangly legs and arms fidgeting. A part of him wants being going up to that door and knock and turning River’s head about, exactly like she does to him, while the other half of him begs to run back into his Tardis and bounce off from planet to planet until he’s due to have a version of River be the one running into him.

 

“Should’ve brought Amelia,” he mutters to himself, making up his mind and casting away all of his doubts, marching headfirst towards that emerald colored front door. Once close enough he notes that it could very well match the shade of River’s eyes if only didn’t stay just the one color.

 

“I was wondering which version of you I’d get this evening,” River purrs when she pulls her front door open. She’s wearing a red dress that cuts off a bit below her knees and has a distinctly modest neckline, it does also cling to her body like a second skin so of course his eyes nearly fall out of their sockets at the sheer sight of her. “It seems I’ve attracted a wandering lamb to my doorstep,” she comments. Her expression seems fond, not at all mocking. He swallows anyway.

 

“River. I got your message, er, card thing,” he clasps his hands together, “the invitation!”

 

“Of course,” River steps aside, allowing him entrance into her home and the Doctor, ever giddy to intrude, wastes no time lingering on her doorstep. His eyes hungrily take in every inch of her home that is on display. He sees certain pictures have been taken down and hidden away. That does put damper on his curiosities.

 

“We might as well get the legalities out of the way here and now,” River sighs, walking over and sinking onto her plush leather couch. It makes that clingy dress of hers tighten around her body gloriously. When he looks back to her face her eyes are alight on his. She’d already been tracking his attentions.

 

He gulps.

 

“Where exactly are you, Doctor?” she inquires.

 

The Doctor clears his throat and fidgets his fingers a bit before taking after River’s cue and sinking down onto the other side of the couch. “Right this moment, it would seem I’m at your house for Christmas, River Song,” and he grins dopily at her.

 

River’s answering smile is blinding. It dazes him and alarms him, just how magnetic he finds her.

 

“Cheeky,” she comments, slipping out of her heels. Also red.

 

“I assume I’m not the only one you’ve invited,” the Doctor’s attempts to turn the conversation, gesturing to the rest of the sitting room so as not to be caught upon as he stares over at River because really, who can help it?

 

“Of course not,” River agrees, playing on being offended. “You are however you,” she reminds him, “and thereby: _late_.”

 

“Oh,” his eyes widen at the accusation. “Oops.”

 

“It’s quite alright, sweetie. Be it one reason or another, but in the end, you do always come when I call.”

 

The Doctor’s smile at those words comes easier now. He’s less and less found himself able to refute the accusation and finds himself willingly coming around to the idea.

 

“I’m beginning to get that,” he admits.

 

River’s eyes fill with a remarkable mirth, sounding immensely pleased. “Finally catching on, are we?”

 

“River,” the Doctor breathes out her name. He doesn’t think he can help being affected by how undeniably striking River Song looks here, like this, at this very moment. Her curls tumbled in loose waves over her shoulders, the festive red dress being so much more snug than it needs to be, her momentarily shoelessness, spread comfortably and utterly without worry lounging across from him on her sitting room couch… her eyes full of a quiet, calm, peaceful happiness.

 

It makes him itch with the want to know everything. She must see it in his eyes because she knowingly states, “Don’t ask me who I am, Doctor.”

 

That sobers the mood that’s befallen them. This haze of whatever it is tying them closer together the more they meet, this dance of pulling and pushing, of _longing –_ for lack of a better word.

 

“Fair enough,” the Doctor bows his head, “but can I ask you something else?”

 

River narrows her eyes, a grin replacing her solemn warning. She moves her shoulder slightly. A lazy, one-shouldered shrug. His eyes have to settle elsewhere. Nerves he can’t explain bubble up at this yet to be asked question. He peers on to the other side of the room where there sits a tiny tree serving as a Christmas tree on the windowsill, and then down to his lap where his hands are fidgeting so without thought that he’s genuinely not surprised when River’s own hand seeks out his own, enveloping them with her calm.

 

He looks up and her eyes are already waiting, imploring and encouraging him to go on. To ask.

 

“Who am I to you, River? Simple as you can, without any spoilers,” he questions, “can you answer me that?”

 

Her mouth parts at first but not a sound comes forward. Her eyes, green and yellow and blue, changing and magnetic as live supernovas, a pair of orbs that he believes he can always fall into, fleet to moments he cannot understand, to instances he has not yet lived through, and he _wants_. More and more, as he sits across from her now, he dearly starts to covet all the memories with her than he has not yet lived through.

 

A smile sets upon her face, a sad and regretful thing, before she answers truthfully, “Anything I say in answer to that question would be a spoiler.” And, hell, he deflates at that a little. River squeezes his hand and continues “But, I will tell you this much, and it may not mean anything to you now but it’s the truth.” She encourages this with another smile, “You’re the Doctor. To everyone you come in contact with, that is who you are. But you are _more_ to me than just a name, as I hope to be to you.”

 

The sincerity of her voice accompanied by how she’s spoken, like she’s just given him a mighty sized confession, quakes resoundingly at both of his hearts. He’s not entirely sure he’s ready for this next bit but he’s overwhelmed enough by what he feels tearing down at his insecurities to look over the technicalities.

 

“River Song,” the Doctor exhales, eyeing her fondly, “if you’d allow it, I think I’d like to kiss you right about now.”

 

River’s eyes, so striking, widen a fraction. Clearly she’d not been expecting such a request. “You really aren’t as young as you look, are you?” she queries, chuckling softly.

 

“You did promise me once,” he points out, adding, “for when I was older.” The image of River and himself easily teasing each other after their first encounter with some Weeping Angels comes, fresh as the day it happened. By the furrowing of this River’s brow beside him she’s not yet had the pleasure so he’s careful not to reveal much more than the words she’d spoken to him. “Well, here I am.”

 

There are so many uncertainties in her gaze.  “But… but this sort of thing, it hasn’t happened for you yet,” she guesses, “has it?”

 

“No,” he utters, however semi-truthful that answer may be. The last time this sort of thing happened he’d just dropped her at her cell and he’d had to watch her face fall and he’d up and run away as quick as possible. He’s not that prone to stupidities like those now that a second chance has come around. “But it’s Christmas,” the Doctor insists, “and there’s a first time for everything, eh?”

 

At his words, a smile breaks out across River Song’s face and he’s elated that this time his words seem to have been the right ones to say.

 

River begins to lean forward and the Doctor gulps, determined not to squirm like a fish. He tries to steady his breathing and not, he repeats, most definitely _not_ shudder the closer she gets. But _bugger_ , he can’t help it! And the smile on her face widens, so he assumes she doesn’t mind either. Then she’s suddenly close enough that he can see peppered freckles he’s never noticed before on her cheeks. Freckles that remind him of _someone_ but he can’t be bothered to recall whom at this very moment. They run delicately over the bridge of her nose, those freckles. Spotting other places too, but her eyes. Oh, he was right. Close up, they aren’t just the one color; they’re different shades balancing out the light and the dark of her iris. Some bits green and yellow and blue and grey. Like a deep, full, all surrounding and endless sea.

 

She is alive. And here, with him. His hearts aches at finding just how much he truly needs her to be.

 

“First time, then?” River whispers, refusing to just dive in without giving him some sort of an out. Despite that, there’s also this light behind her eyes. A glimmer of hope, of love. Of just about everything he can’t quite reach just yet, or entirely understand, but something that he refuses to let flicker.

 

Without much more thought given to it, the Doctor surges forward, sealing his lips over River’s.

 

She’s surprised by his directness, if the small sound at the back of her throat is anything to go by. The River he’d snogged in her jail cell after Utah had been just as good a kisser but the one in his arms right now, she’s calmer somehow. Insistent, but steady. Like she could kiss him for all of eternity, like they have time. Nothing but time. And her earlier confession comes forth, unbidden.

 

 _More than just a name_ , she’d confessed.

 

The Doctor, the name he’d chosen. The one he always strives to live up to. _More than just a name._

 

His stomach plummets at the realization when it hits him. He’s not the Doctor to her, he’s something else. Something terrifying. And it’s something he always knew, at the heart of him. He doesn’t know why it feels like such a grand revelation right her, on this couch at River’s home on Luna. Maybe because it just took him this long to swallow it down. To admit just how much he wants it. Wants her.

 

“Merry Christmas, River,” he mutters against her lips when they part. Her cheeks are flushed and eyes glistening with want and need and love and acceptance. With everything.

 

“Happy Christmas, Doctor,” she whispers back.

 

_As I hope to be to you._

Yes, he’s certain. _She will be…._

_(everything)_


End file.
